Bowling with Seven-Year-Olds

By Duane on February 26, 2012 7:10 PM

I took Colin and two friends -- the Zacharies -- bowling today. It was really a lot of fun. We arrived around 3:00 and I could tell by the fullness of the parking lot that we probably wouldn't get a lane, at least not right away. Inside there were two large birthday parties and a league of some sort. We blew through $15 in arcade tokens before it was time to bowl.

It became awkward for me to distinguish the Zacharies by name so I gave them nicknames. The first became "Skittles" because he bought himself a large bag from the vending machine. The second became "Whoppers" because he got them from the candy claw game and I had to open them for him. Colin's nickname was more of a challenge. To keep with the theme, I tried calling him "Hersheys" but he didn't like that. He wanted to be called "Whooper" but that was too close to Whoppers. For a while I called him "Bloopers" and he seemed to accept it.

That is, until I thought it would be funny to change his name on the bowling screen. Then he became upset and said it was okay to use the nickname aloud, but not on the screen. So today I learned that little boys like verbal, but not written, nicknames that are silly.

Colin was en fuego with the bowling, so I saved face and nicknamed him "Striker." He liked that, of course, and allowed it to be on the screen.

You can easily imagine where all this is going. Soon, the nicknames were changing from turn to turn and the boys were giving themselves better and better nicknames. Meanwhile, I was getting worse nicknames.

We had discussions about whether "hyper" was better than "ultra" and what might come after that. Intergalactic?

The second lesson of the day is that it is much more fun to edit bowler names, than to actually bowl. At least this holds true after the first game.

I think after "Burp Guy" I became "Hyper Looser" or similar. The third lesson I learned today is that super smart boys don't like it when you tell them they spelled "Loser" wrong!

Oddly, the tone changed after this, I think thanks to "Awesome Guy." My nicknames became better and better. By the end of the game I was "The Greatest Man On Ear!"

Search

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Duane published on February 26, 2012 7:10 PM.